County News

COLUMBIA COUNTY, FL – Last Thursday's
afternoon session of the County 5's budget
workshop played to an empty house with,
according to the Clerk, no members of the
public present. The 5 didn't miss its
chance: it authorized County Manager Ben
Scott to ask for a 10% millage rate
increase. The reason: to finance Sheriff
Hunter's new dream Detention Center.

At 9 am Thursday morning, County 5
Chairman Ronald Williams opened the meeting,
"Good morning everybody. I want to call our
workshop meeting to order. This is a special
meeting workshop and it is a meeting. We can
propose legislation to be voted on."

The County Charter: Crystal Clear
'No voting allowed'

The County Charter restricts the County
5. The Charter is crystal clear:

"Action by the Board of County
Commissioners at a special meeting shall be
limited to the purpose for which the special
meeting was called."

Purpose of the Workshop: Budget
Preparation

The meeting agenda was clear. In simple
words, under the heading, "2017-2018 Budget
Preparation," it states the topics to be
discussed: "Fire Department, Budget Process,
Detention Center Repair/Replacement,
Stormwater Mitigation, Strategic Planning,
etc."

Nowhere in the one page agenda is any
mention of a vote on a tax increase, or a
vote on anything else.

The Sheriff's Jail: $25 mil, $28 mil,
who knows?

During the last meeting when the jail
came up, your reporter questioned the
necessity of looking for a new architectural
design firm for the proposed jail and
mentioned that Florida law required that a
request for architectural services be put in
the market place.

On Thursday, Chairman Williams announced that County
Attorney Joel Foreman was going to do some
research on whether or not the County needed
to go out looking for an architectural firm
to design the jail.

Mr. Foreman said the County needed to
solicit an architect.

Commissioner Nash said he wanted to look
at the jail options, followed by a lot of talk
about plans and capacity. There was
general confusion.

Sheriff Hunter joined the discussion and
mentioned that everyone needed to compare
"apples to apples," although it wasn't clear
what the apples were and the bed count at
the proposed new facility jumped around from
384 to 448 to 512.

Commissioner Nash told The 5, "You have
to take the next step and the next step is
to get some hard numbers."

There was a lot of crosstalk, during
which time Commissioner Williams asked the
Clerk, "Did I pass that motion Madame
Clerk?"

Through the fog of talk Commissioner Nash
said, "I don't think we voted on it."

Commissioner Williams said, "We did not?
OK."

County Manager Scott kept talking about
jail capacity, a big point of confusion.

Commissioner Williams jumped in, "OK
guys. We have a motion on the floor to
advertise for a RFQ. (Request for
Qualifications (for the architectural design
firm)).

The motion passed unanimously, although
nobody made the motion.

Next: Raising Taxes - More
Confusion

This graphic is taken from the 175 page
county PowerPoint. Everybody was ready for
the proposed tax increase except the public.
Tax increases were not on the one page
agenda.

County Manager Scott explained raising
the taxes (millage), "If you set the millage
at 8.87, that's what we would need in order
to generate the $2 mil for debt service
which would pay for $25 mil over 15 years.

Commissioner Nash added, "You can always
adjust the length of the loan to make that
number fit the loan... and stuff like that."